The familiar saying, "great things come in small packages" aptly describes Sister Nora Gatto, Executive Director for University Mission and Ministry at Niagara University. Though small in stature, she shares her great energy, humor, and sharp insight with the world. In her present position, she puts those gifts to good use in her responsibility as Director of the Campus Ministry Department at Niagara.

Sister Nora grew up in Elmont, NY and attended St. John’s University in Queens as a theology major. It was at St. John’s, through contact with the Vincentian priests who taught her, that she began walking the path that would eventually lead her to the Daughters of Charity. The Vincentians, also founded by St. Vincent de Paul, introduced Nora to the world of those who are poor by taking her to St. John the Baptist Parish in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. There she met Sister Mary Bernadette Szymczak, a legendary Daughter of Charity who ministered to the poorest in the soup kitchen until her death in 1998 and as Sister Nora recalls, "That was it. I was on fire with what I saw there." After teaching high school for a year after graduation, Nora entered the Daughters and "I’ve been very happy ever since."

Nora’s ministries include teaching high school, formation work with the Daughters, youth ministry in a parish, and Diocesan lay formation for ministry. She has been a principal of both a high school in upstate New York and a grade school in Harlem.

Sister Nora is a running enthusiast and says "running is about harmony: my time to think, pray, and engage my whole body in the process." She ran the New York City marathon in a very respectable four hours and thirty-one minutes. As she says, "not bad for midget legs"! She is also a passionate reader and is always asking, "Have you read this book"?

If you are reading this profile, and would like to live deeper and make a difference, Sister Nora says, "At one time in my life I was grasped by the realities of poverty as I saw it on the faces of children living in urban New York.  I have never been the same!  And I’m so grateful!  My life has been a rich adventure down into the depths and up to the heights of the human condition.  I always dreamed that I could change the world.  I have!  You are called to no less, not because you’re any better, but simply because you feel "grasped" in the same way that I did, and you are looking for a way to say YES.  Look into the Daughters of Charity and you just might see yourself"!